The Flying Place of Rock 'N' Roll

Now it was ten years

Before Elvis shook the world

Music of Black genius

Was never heard

By White boys and girls,

No place else 

But Myrtle Beach,

Called The Flying Place

In the legends

Of runaway slaves,

Before Myrtle Beach

Was,

In the bad old days

Of bondage,

Long before music

That shook the world

Was blown from the piccolo

At Charlie’s Place

To the jukebox

At the big pavilion,

In downtown Myrtle Beach,

In 1943,

Ten years ahead of Elvis Presley.

The hurricane winds of rock-n-roll

Blew through Charlie’s piccolo

In the Whispering Pines,

Fetching up a world away,

Beyond Impassable Swamp

And Jim Crow’s rope,

In 1943.

White teenagers 

Swirled around the jukebox

At the big pavilion,

Inventing the Shag dance.

Ten years ahead of Elvis, 

White kids discovered

Big Joe Turner and Lulu Reed,

The Ink Spots and Sticks McGee.   

They called the new sound

Beach Music,

Cause the Beach

Was the only place they heard it,

In 1943.

The hurricane winds of rock-n-roll

Blew through the Whispering Pines,

Fetching up a world away,

Beyond Impassable Swamp

And Jim Crow’s rope,

From Charlie’s Place 

To the big Pavilion,

Rock-n-Roll grew wings.

And the world never heard

Of Charlie’s Place,

Where Jim Crow died

By inches, beginning 

When rock n roll arrived, 

And White kids 

Jumped the rope for joy.